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Posts from the ‘Gratitude’ Category

Oct 18

Undefended Heart

“With an undefended heart, we can fall in love with life over and over every day. We can become children of wonder, grateful to be walking on earth, grateful to belong with each other and to all of creation. We can find our true refuge in every moment, in every breath.” – Tara Brach

“One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own.”― John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

Awakening fresh and new to each day.
Frame of reference.
Guard down.
Thankful and full heart.
To give and receive encouragement, without reserve.
Crossing thresholds together on the journey.
Grace overflowing.

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” – Voltaire

Oct 16

2 Comments

Sixth Sense of Gratitude

“The key to knowing joy is being easily pleased.”― Mark Nepo

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” – Omar Khayyam

Do one less thing today.
Put one rock down.
Stray off the beaten worn path.
Cut a new trail.
Deep, long breath.
In, out. Repeat.
Embrace the fullness of this day.
Rapt attention.
Honing of senses.
All five senses.
Sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.
A sixth too.
Gratitude.
Hidden right in front of us.
Found in the pause, in the witnessing, in the steeping.
Do one less thing today.

“Sometimes the simplest and best use of our will is to drop it all and just walk out from under everything that is covering us, even if only for an hour or so—just walk out from under the webs we’ve spun, the tasks we’ve assumed, the problems we have to solve. They’ll be there when we get back, and maybe some of them will fall apart without our worry to hold them up.”― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have

Sep 16

More Ice Cream

“Is your glass half empty or half full?” asked the mole.
“I think I’m grateful to have a glass,” said the boy.”― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

“If I had my life to live over…

Someone asked me the other day if I had my life to live over would I change anything.

My answer was no, but then I thought about it and changed my mind.

If I had my life to live over again I would have waxed less and listened more.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy and complaining about the shadow over my feet, I’d have cherished every minute of it and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was to be my only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.

I would have eaten popcorn in the “good” living room and worried less about the dirt when you lit the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would have burnt the pink candle that was sculptured like a rose before it melted while being stored.

I would have sat cross-legged on the lawn with my children and never worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television … and more while watching real life.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband which I took for granted.

I would have eaten less cottage cheese and more ice cream.

I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the Earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for a day.

I would never have bought ANYTHING just because it was practical/wouldn’t show soil/ guaranteed to last a lifetime.

When my child kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, “Later. Now, go get washed up for dinner.”

There would have been more I love yous … more I’m sorrys … more I’m listenings … but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it … look at it and really see it … try it on … live it … exhaust it … and never give that minute back until there was nothing left of it.”

― Erma Bombeck, Eat Less Cottage Cheese And More Ice Cream Thoughts On Life From Erma Bombeck

Start today.
New.
Fresh eyes.
Less complaints.
More awe and wonder.
Lots of smiles and hugs.
Loads of forgiveness, faith and letting go.
Heaps of kindness, compassion, enthusiasm.
Heavy on joy, laughter, delight.
Light on criticism, assumptions, fear.
Rapt attention.
Present in the now.
Ordinary moments, extraordinary grace.
Grateful for your imperfect, abundant, beautiful life.
No would haves or do-overs.
Today.
Seize every minute of it.

“The greatest illusion,” said the mole, “is that life should be perfect.”― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

Aug 7

1 Comment

Doorway to Thanks

“Listen to silence. It has so much to say.” – Rumi

Prayer by Mary Oliver

“It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.”

May the beauty, life and vibrancy of summer prompt pause, praise, delight.
May the details of nature, a flower, creation prompt gratitude, joy, wonder.
May we get fresh eyes and awakened senses each day to see it all with reverence and awe.
Doorway to thanks, threshold to joy, cross over.

“Give yourself a gift of five minutes of contemplation in awe of everything you see around you. Go outside and turn your attention to the many miracles around you. This five-minute-a-day regimen of appreciation and gratitude will help you to focus your life in awe.” – Wayne Dyer

Jul 31

Gift of Gratitude

Gratitude does not require perfection.
Nor different circumstances.
Nor someday when…
A keen eye.
A shift in attitude.
Open hands to embrace.
Porous heart to let the good in.
Rapt attention to the present.
Ordinary days.
Hope with hip boots.
Laughter overflowing.
Music turned up.
Delight awaiting our awakening.
Joy in the simple.

Jul 22

Fullness of this Day

“There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”― Gerard Manley Hopkins

“At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Not just another day.
This one comes, not to return nor repeat.
Do not speed by or shortcut it.
Walk the path.
Feet on the ground.
Deep well.
Fresh waters beneath the surface.
The fullness of this very day.
Be present, partake, participate.

“Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.” – Anne Sexton

Jul 20

2 Comments

Pastures Still

“As you get older, you want less from the world; you just want to experience it. Any barriers to feeling emotions get dismantled. And ordinary things become beautifully poetic.” – Richard Linklater

“All things therefore are charged with love, are charged with God and if we knew how to touch them give off sparks and take fire, yield drops and flow, ring and tell of him.”― Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Robert Bridges

May we hone our senses sharp to see the bigness in small moments while we are in them.
To live twice and then some.
In the moment and memory.
From doing, busy, checklist to being, slowness and connection.
A shift in perspective.
Present and awake.
May gratitude pull up a chair next to you today to chat awhile.
Pastures still, filled with music of praise.

“ELECTED Silence, sing to me
And beat upon my whorlèd ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.”
― Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose

Jul 14

1 Comment

Between the Lines

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”― Robert Frost

“The reward is a full human experience, complete with all the emotions at maximum dosage, where we have been put to great use and found an other-centric love that is complete in its expression and its transmission. The reward is to end up soft and humble, empty and in awe, knowing that of all the magnificence we have beheld from cradle to grave, the most eye-popping was interpersonal.

So here’s to anyone who notices and reads between the lines, who asks the right questions, but not too many, who takes notes at the doctor’s office and wipes butts, young and old, who listens, holds and stays. We, who, untrained and always a little off-guard, still dare to do love. To be love. That’s brave.” – Kelly Corrigan, To Love is to Be Brave, TedTalk 2024

May I read between the lines.
Ask more questions to understand.
To never assume first impressions are true.
To dig deeper to reveal complexities and nuances.
To hold and be held.
Awake in the middle.
Soft and humble.
Emptied of the futile to make room for the truly important.
In awe of the magnificence of love woven in ordinary days.
Often overlooked and sped by on the way to what’s next.
Amplifying now, tending to what’s next when it arrives.
Full human experience, maximum dosage of the present beautiful day.
Brave love in action.

“Behind all the stories we tell ourselves and the conditioning and beliefs we’ve adopted, there is a voice that is constantly whispering our truth. An internal GPS that knows our ‘yes’s’, and ‘no’s’ our ‘this way’s’ or ‘that way’s’, our core intent.”― Shayne Traviss, Your Vivid Life

Jul 7

1 Comment

The Furtherings

“I’m going to give you a handful of wildflowers
so, each petal that falls will remind you
that the earth breathes, and the moon rises.”― Carolyn Riker, My Dear, Love Hasn’t Forgotten You

“I give thanks for arriving
Safely in a new dawn,
For the gift of eyes
To see the world,
The gift of mind
To feel at home
In my life.
The waves of possibility
Breaking on the shore of dawn,
The harvest of the past
That awaits my hunger,
And all the furtherings
This new day will bring.”
– John O’Donohue

Beauty in the forefront.
Delight in the making.
To paint a blank canvas.
Vibrant colors.
Brilliant shapes and hues.
Deep gratitude, awe and wonder.
Oasis at our feet.
In the midst of the desert.
Abundance sitting right next to scarcity.
Awaiting our awakening, our partaking.
The gift of fresh eyes, open heart and waves of possibility in all of the furtherings of this new day.

“Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.”― Madeleine L’Engle

Mar 22

To Live in this World

“Stepping out of the busyness, stopping our endless pursuit of getting somewhere else, is perhaps the most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit.”― Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver

“Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.

Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”

Loving.
Holding.
Letting go.

Timing.

To live in this world.

Noticing.
Partaking.
Raptly aware.
Deeply grateful.
Sacred holy ground of the present.
Root.

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